7 Best GBA Emulator for Android (2018): Free and Paid Version

You are browsing:
Home → Emulators → 7 Best GBA Emulator for Android (2018): Free and Paid Version

Remember the days when we used to play Game Boy Advance (GBA) games on the console which was branded and marketed by Nintendo? Back then, you can have one purchased by paying $99.95 for your brand new GBA. However, now you can own a smartphone for that much price and can play all your favourite GBA games using an emulator. It would be a nostalgic moment for you, isn’t it?

Well, in this topic I will cover a various range of GBA emulator for Android mobile that is free and paid. I will try to include the maximum free versions of GBA emulator for you guys because I don’t want you to spend much on this thing. Lets quickly jump on the list of GBA emulators for Android for the year 2018.

John GBA Lite

One of my favourite GBA emulator for android so far. It’s tiny in size (3.5 MB) and has very easy to use control buttons which are well separated. John GBA Lite can work in both portrait and landscape mode, and it’s all up to you, whichever you like. In addition to this, it has vibration feedback on tapping any button on the screen. It gives you the feel of the physical button. The only drawback of this app is “ads” which is fine for a free android app. You can buy the pro version John BGA for an ad-free experience.

MeBoy Advance

Meboy is a new GBA emulator for android, and it really impressed me. Even though it is entirely free, it has minimal ads (almost none) which gives a great user experience. Now comes to customisation, it is a fully customizable GBA emulator. You can change the audio, video, GUI and even system settings like processing power. The game progress will be saved immediately even when your phone shuts down. The onscreen buttons work very smooth however they are a little bit smaller by default, and you can change the size from settings.

My Boy

Here is the most advance GBA emulator for your android smartphone. Why I am calling it most advanced because it uses your sensors for motion gaming. You can change the sensitivity of your sense to make it balanced. It is multi-touch compatible with your screen that means it can respond to more than two touches at the same time. Other than this, it has all the functions as John GBA Lite.

Max GBA Emulator

If you just want to play your favourite GBA games without messing with additional setting options, perhaps Max GBA emulator for Android is what you need. This emulator is very easy to use and has stylish preset pairs of buttons. You cannot do much modification on this GBA emulator, but this emulator can get you to play the games faster than other emulators. It already has a store of all the GBA games, and you don’t have to download additional ROMS.

VinaBoy Advance

Another GBA emulator with elementary and limited features. Vinaboy can load ROMS from any .gba , .gbc, .sgb, .zip, .7z, .rar file formats. It processes video quite fast and smoothly. It also has an anti-aliasing feature with multi-threaded support. So if you need a basic gaming emulator with minimal options, this emulator is suitable for you.

John GBA Pro

Well, We have already learned about this emulator. If you want to support the developer and want an ad-free experience, I would highly recommend you to purchase John GBA pro version. Other paid version of emulators are charging a sky-high price, but this emulator is very cheap to buy.

Top Features that I liked

RetroArch

Well, this is not just a GBA emulator, it is a group of 80+ arcade programs. You can play or watch other’s game using this emulator. The game is easy to download from its store, and that too is free. It has all the categorised gaming library of all the retro games. Give this emulator a try, and I am sure you will love it.

Caution: Try using this app in landscape mode rather than portrait. The key mapping is not excellent in portrait mode. Also, this app may not work correctly for everyone as it has some bugs. It should be resolved in the next few updates.

Requirements to Use GBA Emulator on Android

GBA emulators for android mobile doesn’t require high-end smartphone instead a budget phone can do the job easily. Nevertheless, I would highly recommend having at least 1GB of RAM and at least 1.2 GHz dual-core processor on your mobile for smooth gameplay. That is it, enjoy playing your game right now.

Troubleshoot With GBA Emulators

If you are facing black screen issue on your emulator then click here. This link will help you to fix the black screen. If you have any other queries, do ask in the comment section.